Piloting access to the Belgian web-archive for scientific research: a methodological exploration

The web is fraught with contradiction. On the one hand, the web has become a central means of information in everyday life and therefore holds the primary sources of our history created by a large variety of people (Milligan, 2016; Winters, 2017). Yet, much less importance is attached to its preservation, meaning that potentially interesting sources for future (humanities) research are lost. Web archiving therefore is a direct result of the computational turn and has a role to play in knowledge production and dissemination as demonstrated by a number of publications (e.g. Brügger & Schroeder, 2017) and research initiatives related to the research use of web archives (e.g. https://resaw.eu/). However, conducting research, and answering research questions based on web archives - in short; ‘using web archives as a data resource for digital scholars’ (Vlassenroot et al., 2019) - demonstrates that this so-called ‘computational turn’ in humanities and social sciences (i.e. the increased incorporation of advanced computational research methods and large datasets into disciplines which have traditionally dealt with considerably more limited collections of evidence), indeed requires new skills and new software. In December 2016, a pilot web-archiving project called PROMISE (PReserving Online Multiple Information: towards a Belgian StratEgy) was funded. The aim of the project was to (i) identify current best practices in web-archiving and apply them to the Belgian context, (ii) pilot Belgian web-archiving, (iii) pilot access (and use) of the pilot Belgian web archive for scientific research, and (iv) make recommendations for a sustainable web-archiving service for Belgium. Now the project is moving towards its final stages, the project team is focusing on the third objective of the project, namely how pilot access to the Belgian web archive for scientific research. The aim of this presentation is to discuss how the PROMISE team approached piloting access to the Belgian web-archive for scientific research, including: a) reviewing how existing web-archives provide access to their collections for research, b) assessing the needs of researchers based on a range of initiatives focussing on research-use of web-archives (e.g. RESAW, BUDDAH, WARCnet, IIPC Research Working Group, etc. and c) exploring how the five persona’s created as part of the French National Library’s Corpus project (Moiraghi, 2018) could help us to explore how different types of academic researchers that might use web archives in their research. Finally, we will introduce the emerging Digital Research Lab at the Royal Library of Belgium (KBR) as part of a long-term collaboration with the Ghent Centre for Digital Humanities (GhentCDH) which aims to facilitate data-level access to KBR’s digitised and born-digital collections and could potentially provide the solution for offering research access to the Belgian web-archive

Library and information resources and users of digital resources in the humanities

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to discuss the results of the Log Analysis of Internet Resources in the Arts and Humanities (LAIRAH) study. It aims to concentrate upon the use and importance of information resources, physical research centres and digital finding aids in scholarly research. Design/methodology/approach – Results are presented of web server log analysis of portals for humanities scholars: the arts and humanities data service (AHDS) website and Humbul Humanities Hub. These are used to determine which resources were accessed most often, or seldom. Questionnaire data about perceptions of digital resource use were also gathered. Findings – Information resources such as libraries, archives museums and research centres, and the web pages that provide information about them are vital for humanities scholars. The university library website was considered to be the most important resource, even compared to Google. Secondary finding aids and reference resources are considered more important than primary research resources, especially those produced by other scholars, whose output is less trusted than publications produced by commercial organisations, libraries, archives and museums. Practical implications – Digital resources have not replaced physical information resources and the people who staff them, thus both types of information continue to require funding. Scholars trust the judgment of information professionals, who therefore need to be trained to evaluate and recommend specialist digital research resources. Originality/value – LAIRAH was the first research project to use quantitative data to investigate resource use. Findings about the type of resources used are based on evidence rather than opinions alone. This gives a clearer picture of usage that may be used to plan future information services

Desiderata for Exploratory Search Interfaces to Web Archives in Support of Scholarly Activities

Web archiving initiatives around the world capture ephemeral web content to preserve our collective digital memory. In this paper, we describe initial experiences in providing an exploratory search interface to web archives for humanities scholars and social scientists. We describe our initial implementation and discuss our finding in terms of desiderata for such a system. It is clear that the standard organization of a search engine results page (SERP), consisting of an ordered list of hits, is inadequate to support the needs of scholars. Shneiderman's mantra for visual information seeking ("overview first, zoom and filter, then details-on-demand") provides a nice organizing principle for interface design, to which we propose an addendum: \Make every-thing transparent". We elaborate on this by highlighting the importance of the temporal dimension of web pages as well as issues surrounding metadata and veracity.This research was supported by a research grant -- 435-2015-0011 -- issued by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

Technological Devices in the Archives: A Policy Analysis

Doing research in the archive is the cornerstone of humanities scholarship. Various archives institute policies regarding the use of technological devices, such as mobile phones, laptops, and cameras in their reading rooms. Such policies directly affect the scholars as the devices mediate the nature of their interaction with the source materials in terms of capturing, organizing, note taking, and record keeping for future use of found materials. In this paper, we present our analysis of the policies of thirty archives regarding the use of technology in their reading rooms. This policy analysis, along with data from interviews of scholars and archivists, is intended to serve as a basis for developing mobile applications for assisting scholars in their research activities. In this paper we introduce an early prototype of such a mobile application— AMTracker.Informatio

Evaluation the software tools quality to thesaurus in the implementation of a controlled media art vocabulary

In this project, he develops the evaluation of seven thesaurus software tools, in the implementation of a controlled vocabulary, for the CAAC (Collections and Archives of Contemporary Art of the Faculty of Fine Arts of Cuenca, UCLM) in collaboration with UC3M; framed in the "Media Art vocabulary" project. For the conservation of artistic products as digital objects of the museum of Cuenca, Spain. The Construction and application of the thesaurus, Web implementation, publication of its terms as Linked Data, using TemaTres Software. A customized method is used combining quality, usability and semantic web techniques. A method was designed to evaluate the characteristics of each of the tools. Such as the availability of download, easy of access, use, learning, deployment on the server, sharing, and exchange of data, and free use. This study is a part project to Vocabularies for a Media Art Archives and Collections Network. This project establishes the scientific and methodological convergence of two research teams, one from Humanities, Art and Fine Arts, the other from Documentation, with a support of Computer Science and Audiovisual Communication. The importance of project progress lies in metadata labeling, identification by descriptors of the specific thesaurus, guarantee of semantic reuse of content, interoperability for a network of Media Art archives and collections, its digital continuity and dissemination in virtual spaces Wide projection. Winning the TemaTres tool, the thesaurus was implemented in the period from April to July 2019.The Minister of Economy and Competitiveness (Spain) for the funding of the project "Vocabularies for a Network of Archives and Media Art Collections and its effects: metaliteracy and knowledge tourism" whose reference is HAR2016-75949-C2-1-R. The Fundación Carolina (Spain), in the program: "Estancias cortas postdoctorales" in colaboration The Exerior Relations Secretary (México)

Archiving Software Surrogates on the Web for Future Reference

Software has long been established as an essential aspect of the scientific process in mathematics and other disciplines. However, reliably referencing software in scientific publications is still challenging for various reasons. A crucial factor is that software dynamics with temporal versions or states are difficult to capture over time. We propose to archive and reference surrogates instead, which can be found on the Web and reflect the actual software to a remarkable extent. Our study shows that about a half of the webpages of software are already archived with almost all of them including some kind of documentation.Comment: TPDL 2016, Hannover, German

Exploring Regional Development of Digital Humanities Research: A Case Study for Taiwan

This study analyzed references and source papers of the Proceedings of 2009-2012 International Conference of Digital Archives and Digital Humanities (DADH), which was held annually in Taiwan. A total of 59 sources and 1,104 references were investigated, based on descriptive analysis and subject analysis of library practices on cataloguing. Preliminary results showed historical materials, events, bureaucracies, and people of Taiwan and China in the Qing Dynasty were the major subjects in the tempo-spatial dimensions. The subject-date figure depicted a long-low head and short-high tail curve, which demonstrated both characteristics of research of humanities and application of technology in digital humanities. The dates of publication of the references spanned over 360 years, which shows a long time span in research materials. A majority of the papers (61.41%) were single-authored, which is in line with the common research practice in the humanities. Books published by general publishers were the major type of references, and this was the same as that of established humanities research. The next step of this study will focus on the comparison of characteristics of both sources and references of international journals with those reported in this article.Comment: 25 pages, 10 tables, 5 figure

Virtual studio: a digital repository in architectural education

The “virtual studio” is a project exploring the potential of virtual learning environments to augment conventional studio culture in the Lincoln School of Architecture. Staff saw an opportunity to bridge the long-acknowledged divide in learning between theory, technology and studio practice by linking a wide range of digital material and media from across the curriculum within a single virtual space, both formal learning objects created by staff and work produced by students. Early in its development the project was expanded to link with Lincoln’s JISC-funded Institutional Repository which aims to establish a digital repository of teaching and learning objects and peer-reviewed research across the University. The School of Architecture was to be an initial test bed for the creation of a more generic, university-wide repository. However, architecture is an atypical discipline; its emphasis is more visual than literary, more practice than research-based and its approach to teaching and learning is more fluid and varied than either the sciences or the humanities (Stevens, 1998). If we accept that it is social interests that underlie the development of technology rather than any inevitable or rational progress (Bijker, 1997), the question arises as to what extent an institutional repository can reconcile architectural interests with the interests of other disciplines. Architecture and the design disciplines are marginal actors in the debate surrounding digital archive development, this paper argues, and they bring problems to the table that are not easily resolved given available software and that lie outside the interests of most other actors in academia